There’s a saying, a whakataukī, that reminds us that the kūmara doesn’t speak of its own sweetness. My Nanama was big on that. Waiho mā te tangata e mihi: leave it to others to sing your praises. In te ao Māori, being full of yourself isn’t cool. Trouble is, most of the time, we’re living in a […]

One of the most daunting things about sending our boy to boarding school was that, for the first six weeks, aside from handwritten letters, we weren’t allowed to have any contact with him. In the pre-email, pre-free calling era, this would have been fairly standard. Back in the day, boarding school parents didn’t have much choice […]